RSS and More

Never a Doll Moment

Today, I saw a vagrant woman in her twenties along the breakwater. Underneath her dusting of dirt, punctured arms and gnatty hair, she was tall, blonde and blue-eyed, and I wondered – how did she become a Homeless Barbie?

I was brought up to be like Barbie.To pass up pudding for chickpeas. To starve myself, then stuff my Maidenform. Only to find I could never emulate her anatomically impossible figure.

To overachieve to a Masters Degree, yet still never soar to Barbie’s career heights.To look for love and Mr. Right, yet never land a Ken. Although with his affinity for ascots and sockless loafers, was he only trying to attract other Kens?

As a young girl, I held Barbie up to the mirror and wondered if we were from the same species. Barbie would be 5’9”, with a 39” bust, 18” waist, and 33” hips, weighing 110 pounds, with a size 3 shoe, and a severely anorexic BMI. This dream girl would not be able to menstruate and might even have to walk on all fours. A real Darwinistic, thinning-of-the-herd, non-date-getter. Certainly not top shelf.

But back as a tween? I was a 110-pound beanpole and measured around 18”, 18”, 18.” To a perfectionist, pageant-loving mother, Barbie was the girl to be. When some obsessed girls could never measure up to this ideal daughter, did some later give up? Pick up a flask, a needle, or a bottle of pills?

The world’s got every other type of Barbie, why not a more realistic, cautionary tale, tween series? The Druggie Debutante, the Alkie Cheerleader, or the Preggers Class Prez? After that, the adult series could feature The Crack Ho, the Street Walker, and of course, the Homeless Barbie. She’d come in a cardboard box, little paper bag of Thunderbird wine, a shopping cart full of aluminum cans and a condescending mother who tells her she’ll never amount to anything.

With impossible body goals, absurd role models and delusional idols creating the perfect recipe for self-loathing in young girls, is it any wonder some end up as a Homeless Barbie, rather than her polished look-alike, who’s an Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, a UNICEF Summit Leader and a Lifeguard, who comes with her own dolphin.

Bitches, please.

Oh, and I just saw Ken in a mesh tank and leather shorts, strutting out of a rave.

User Login

New Release
How to Write and Share Humor
By Donna Cavanagh Published by HumorOutcasts Press
Available in Paperback and Kindle New Release
Lite Whines and Laughter: Mild Rants and Musings on the Mundane
By Lee Gaitan and HumorOutcasts Press
Available in Paperback and Kindle

New Release
It Comes From Within: Living with Bipolar Illness
By Michael Solomon. and Shorehouse Books
Available in Paperback and Kindle